EVENTS

An honest creationist?

It’s nice to know there’s at least one honest creationist left. Or at least, partly honest. And he lives in Georgia.

Educators across the country are now developing what’s called the “next generation of science standards.”

A member of the Villa Rica Church of Christ told Channel 2’s Diana Davis evolution should not be a part of those standards…

[Church member Bob] Staples and his church are fighting for schools to include another view… Staples told Davis he believes in the literal meaning of the Bible: That god created heaven and Earth. Although, he says, he does not expect public schools to teach the bible’s view of creationism.

None of this namby-pamby “teach the controversy” stuff. He wants evolution out and creationism in. He doesn’t expect to get what he wants, but he’s telling the plain and simple truth about his goals. Rather refreshing in a way.Now for the bad news.

Staples, who is a college math teacher, serves on a state committee that is working to develop science standards for education.

It’s a shame the committee that sets the science standards seems to lack adequate standards of its own when it comes to selecting members for the committee! For example, here is Staples’ reasoning for why new species do not arise by descent with variation from common ancestors.

He said people of faith can’t have it both ways.

“You cannot read Genesis 1 and 2 and also agree with evolution. They are contrary to each other. They are contradictory,” Staples said.

In his letter to the state science committee, he claims the teaching of evolution since the 1960s has contributed to what he sees as a decline in American morals.

“The crime rate, child abuse, divorce. All of these things rose from a period following the implementation of teaching Darwinian Theory,” Staples said.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species about 50 years ago, and ever since, the US has declined from the crime-free, divorce-free, nice-to-all-kids nation it was in the 50’s and earlier. Sheesh. At least he’s honest about the fact that Genesis contradicts science.

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“You cannot read Genesis 1 and 2 and also agree with evolution. They are contrary to each other. They are contradictory,”

You cannot read Genesis 1 and 2 and agree with creationism. They (Genesis 1 and 2) are contrary to each other. They are contradictory.

Dude hasn’t even read and understood his Bible. Genesis 1 is a clearly laid out 7 day situation where man is formed alongside woman after all the animals are made. Genesis 2 is a little more poetic, with no clearly laid out lines at first, but man is clearly made before all animals, and then woman is made after all the animals are made.

St. Augustine of Hippo (AD ~350-430 IIRC) already realized that the Genesis narratives were not mutually consistent and had to be taken as metaphors for some sort of process of creation (e.g., 24-hour “days” made no sense), rather than as a literal description of events. He also cautioned his co-religionists against arguing with people who understood the natural world better than they did. Unlike his views on “predestination,” his views on Genesis and “natural philosophy” have not been popular with those who followed him.

A honest creationist? Even partly? I don’t see that at all, not with him lying about this in his letter “In his letter to the state science committee, he claims the teaching of evolution since the 1960s has contributed to what he sees as a decline in American morals.” That he says that his religion contradicts science is nothing more than his claim that is religion is “right” which is also another lie.

It is unfortunate, but all theists are guilty of being intentional liars in this day and age where they must intentionally ignore all of the evidence that shows their nonsense to be wrong.

“The crime rate, child abuse, divorce. All of these things rose from a period following the implementation of teaching Darwinian Theory,” Staples said.

This is another lie that Evangelicals like to tell each other. Usually they blame taking prayer out of schools as the cause for all those problems of the 1960’s. My parents used to subscribe to the annual World Book Encyclopedia, which my brother, sister, and I would read over and over all year. A few years ago, while visiting my mother, I found those old books. The one from 1961 (it may have been the 1961 edition or the 1962 edition based on the year 1961) reported an increasing crime problem from the 1950’s. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

“The crime rate, child abuse, divorce. All of these things rose from a period following the implementation of teaching Darwinian Theory,” Staples said.

Well for one thing, people were more willing to report crimes and there were stricter laws about child abuse so yes, the crime rate will go up. There was still crime in before evolution was taught except back then a lot of it was swept under the rug because the victims were usually “those” people. As for divorce, well it became more socially acceptable and I don’t think that links to teaching evoultion. Of course Staples sounds like the kind of person who would want a wife to stay with an abusive husband instead of getting a divorce.

So if “Darwinian Theory” has done anything it’s made us less willing to put up with crap and do something about it; which is hardly a bad thing.

Even if Staples’ statistics are correct — and I’m not about to accept them at face value — it certainly doesn’t indicate any sort of causation. It’s like saying that the growing influence of fundamentalist Christianity over the Republican Party since 1980 has led to a huge jump in gay marriage.

It’s amusing to me how creationists are always going on about how evolution is contradictory to genesis 1 and 2, as anyone can plainly see by just reading the text. Yet they’ll go to absolutely asinine lengths to reconcile contradictions within the Bible.

If they would put even ten percent of the creative energy they put towards reconciling errors in the Bible to reconciling Christianity with evolution, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Some of them have, they are called the church of England. God is now an optional extra in its belief system.

Funny enough Catholics are the same, I attribute this to the lack of bibles in Catholicism, they generally accept that theres a god guy, and his mum was called Mary, but that’s as far as the theology goes. I can’t remember the name of the carolic priest who did the Dawkins interview, he was just classic, I think he used to be head of the Vatican science closet or something. But he told Dawkins he didn’t believe in a soul, that was classic, you could see throughout the interview he didn’t believe any of it, he knew it was bs but he didn’t think it tasted bad.

Zoebrain, I assume you’re referring to Christian theologians. The Greeks had known the Earth to be spherical 1,000 years before 350 CE and had measured the circumference of the equator fairly accurately by 240 CE